Main Entry: pop·corn Pronunciation: 'päp-"kornFunction: noun: an Indian corn (Zea mays praecox) whose kernels on exposure to heat burst open to form a white starchy mass; also : the kernels especially after popping

Popcorn, a favorite snack of movie goers (at least in the U.S.) and popular since Amerinds introduced the food to Pilgrims, can actually kill you.

True story. It was very early morning on New Year's Day, 1997, when my friend, who I will call George (not his real name) woke up with severe abdominal pain and a raging fever. His wife rushed him to the local hospital. The Emergency Room personnel reacted quickly and contacted their chief surgeon who arrived barely in time to save George's life.

A diverticulum in George's large intestine gradually filled up with bran from the popcorn. On January 1, 1997 the diverticulum ruptured and almost killed George. The surgeon who handled his case set him up with a colostomy arrangement for the six months it would take to heal from the surgery and "cleaning out" procedure, with the caveat that he may not be able to reconnect the great bowel at the end of the six months. As it happened, luck was with George and the reconnection was successful. Now 8 years later he is happily retired and never ever eats pop corn.

The surgeon confided to George that the major part of his practice consists of dealing with ruptured diverticuli.

William, who can count on the fingers of one hand the number of times he has eaten popcorn since George's harrowing experience with the devilish stuff,

Diverticulitis is inflammation of an abnormal pouch (diverticulum) in the intestinal wall, usually found in the large intestine (colon). The presence of the pouches themselves is called diverticulosis.

At any rate to be concrened with popcorn on the off chance you have diverticulae, is like worrying about getting malaria in the Arctic circle.

Katy
But I totally agree with you, Stouty that it's a scary thing to have happen, I understand that diverticulitis is painful, I checked it out on the net, I remember my adoptive mother died of it or rather the complications.

Diverticuli? Shouldn't it be diverticula? I haven't checked any English dictionary, though, I'm just using my Latin.

Yes! It should!

I wondered about that. It has been many, many years since I studied Latin (1963) and then it was only for one semester, I didn't do all that well. So I don't know all of the rules regarding the formation of plurals in Latin, or Italian for that matter.

OK, Katy, Maybe I'll start eating popcorn again, at least as long as I have teeth. I understand that people with dentures don't eat popcorn cuz it hurts.

When I was a senior in college I lived in one of the cheap dormitories at Arizona State University. My room mate that year was an engineering student from India. He was a very nice fellow who introduced me to a food which he called papad (that's as near as I can come to its pronunciation). Papad consisted of disks about the size of corn tortillas, only much dryer, and I think it was made of green peas or lentils or maybe both. I had an electric hot plate upon which I heated my dinner each night (usually consisting of Minute Rice® mixed with a can of Campbells®
vegetable beef soup). We used the hot plate to heat the papad. It bubbled up when heated and tasted pretty good.
I introduced my room mate to pop corn and we spent many an evening talking about India and the U.S. and eating papad and pop corn. I have not heard from him in almost 35 years. I hope that he doesn't have diverticulitis, or if he does that he stopped eating pop corn.